


Inside my head like adversaries

by MagusLibera



Series: fics I wrote in quarantine as I chilled [15]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: CEO, CEO Felicity Smoak, CEO Oliver Queen, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, John finds it all hilarious, Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive (Arrow TV 2012), Queen Consolidated (Arrow TV 2012), Rival CEOs, Rivalry, Rivals Isolating Together, Smoak Technologies, i might continue this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24095791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: Oliver is the CEO of Queen Consolidated.Felicity is the CEO of Smoak Technologies.When they decide to bring their companies together in a collaboration project, they find themselves arguing more than anything. Especially when they end up isolating together during a pandemic.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: fics I wrote in quarantine as I chilled [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672840
Comments: 68
Kudos: 201





	Inside my head like adversaries

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this would be 2-3k. I'm such a fool.
> 
> Title from Fleurie's Hurts Like Hell.

Oliver feels his legs almost give out from under him, his knees shaking with the exhaustion, all of his energy finally used up. He manages to keep himself upright just long enough to flip himself so that his back is pressed to the wall and he can gently slide down to the floor. It gives Felicity a chance to adjust herself too, using the little energy that she has left to reposition her legs so that she can avoid being crushed under him as his body hits the floor, spent.

He is still a little out of breath – hell, he is still a little _hard_ inside her – but he has never been more sated in his life. That was, without a doubt, the best sex that he has ever had and under any ordinary circumstances it should have been enough to keep him in a level of bliss for days. But these are no ordinary circumstances. She is no ordinary girl. She is _Felicity_ and the tension between them has been building up for months now. Oliver has never been as attracted to a woman as he is to Felicity Megan Smoak. Nobody has ever been able to make him so angry and turned on and awed all at the same time. He has known that he is a goner for her for so long, this is just the culmination of everything that he has been feeling since he first saw her almost a year ago.

*************************

**Nine Months Before**

Oliver is still getting used to his new role as QC’s CEO. Seven years ago, in the span of a single week, his then-girlfriend Laurel had found out about his affair with her sister, Sara and left him, his father had died when the family boat went down on a business trip and he and his best friend Tommy had ended up in hospital after a car crash caused by Oliver being drunk behind the wheel in an attempt to drown his grief. Waking up to the tear soaked faces of his mother and twelve year old sister had been a slap in the face. The two of them had only just lost Robert and were then told that they might lose Oliver too. Knowing that he had caused them that fear, after everything that they had already been through, it had been too much for him. He never wanted to be responsible for making his sister cry again.

It forced him to get his act together. He completed his bachelor’s and then his master’s in business at Harvard whilst the old CFO, Walter Steele, took charge of the company. Being so far from home for five years had been hard, especially being away from his little sister as she grew up, but it had been worth it to keep him away from Tommy. The crash did not have the same profound effect on Tommy that it did on Oliver and, as much as Oliver adores Tommy, he knew that staying close to his friend would only result in him falling back into old habits.

So he went away, got his degree and then returned home to work under Walter as a shadow until the older man, now his step-father, decided to step down and let Oliver take the reins. It has been a lot to get used to, Oliver knows that running the family business is not exactly what he wants to be doing and that makes it a lot harder to throw himself into it but he is determined to succeed. He wants to honour his father’s memory and legacy, he wants to make his family proud.

And that is why he is about to meet with some woman named Felicity Smoak. She is the CEO of a new, but startlingly successful company called Smoak Technologies and apparently is doing things with medical tech that have never been seen before. Smoak Tech and QC have been fighting over contacts for a while now, and Oliver has heard more than one thing from his employees about what a thorn in their side the new company is. But Oliver’s CTO has now expressed the opinion that teaming up with her and creating at least a friendly rapport with her company is in QC’s best interests, so that is what he is determined to do.

When she walks into the conference room, Oliver almost physically has to stop his jaw from dropping. He had been expecting a jaded middle aged business woman, experienced and prepared for anything in a formal suit, sporting a no nonsense expression. Instead, he comes face to face with the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. She is tiny, even in the high heels that she is wearing, and ever so young. Younger even than Oliver. Her eyes are bright and hopeful, her entire countenance like joyful sunshine made sentient and Oliver can literally feel his tongue tying in his mouth.

She is the opposite of everything that he had expected in a bright, short skirted but still professional dress and a cheerful ponytail and adorable, nerdy glasses. She gives him a smile as bright as she is and it makes his heart just stop, captivated by the beauty before him.

“Hi, I’m Felicity Smoak!” she chirps, offering out a hand to him.

He is too numb to recognise it, and he has no control of what comes out of his mouth next, “Aren’t you a bit young to be a CEO?”

Instantly, he knows it was the wrong thing to say. He had meant it as a compliment, something to express how impressed he is that somebody so young can be so successful without some degree of nepotism because it is almost unheard of and speaks very highly of her character. Instead, he put his foot in his mouth.

Everything about her changes, her open smile closes off, lips pressing together, her bright eyes harden, making her intelligence shine through as they go from expressive to calculating. The room actually feels like it cools by several degrees and Oliver has to supress a shiver, trying to figure out how to get himself out of his blunder. He makes eye contact with Dig, his close friend and bodyguard since his return to Starling, and sees the man rolling his eyes disapprovingly.

“I mean-”

“I think I know what you mean, Mister Queen.” She cuts across him, voice harsh, “I assure you that my age has no bearing on my ability to run my company, nor does my gender, my clothing choices or anything else beyond my degrees and my stock portfolio.”

She really does not know what he meant, “I didn’t mean-” he tries to explain, only to be stopped once again.

“I believe we have business to attend to, Mister Queen.” She says, situating herself at the opposite end of the table and leaving no room for argument.

Oliver realises that she is protecting herself. She must have come across so many misogynists in her few years in the industry, she must have lost so many opportunities and had to put up with so much that the minute somebody – Oliver – even makes a comment that seems like it might be going in that direction, she shuts down. Oliver understands, to an extent. It has been quite a task to convince his board to get past his age, playboy reputation and the nepotism that is the only reason _he_ is in the position he is in (because he is certainly not as brilliant or worthy as she is) and to convince them of how seriously he takes his role in the company. For her, she has no family legacy to speak of and she also had the gall to be born female. He can just imagine some of the treatment that she has received from the conservative elitists who run in their circles.

It makes him determined to show her that he is not like them. He wants her to know that he respects her and what she has done, and that he is honoured to be working with her. The problem is that his brain is not quite able to catch up with that decision. It is still caught up on the fact that the incredible woman he had read about is a gorgeous, young ball of happiness of a person on top of her incredible intelligence. And that means that he spends most of their meeting mutely staring at her as she lays out her plans for a collaboration between their companies.

He is lucky that she wants to work with his company enough to get past it, because he can tell that she is becoming more and more frustrated with him as the meeting goes on and he blows every opportunity that he has to prove her initial assessment of him wrong. Dig stands in the back, shaking his head and all that Oliver can think is that it is a good thing that their project will take at least a year, because that will give him a chance to fix things and make her like him.

*************************

Once he manages to get his wits about him and focus on something beyond the extraordinary pleasure he is in, he gets to see her face. She is still mostly out of it, her face glowing with the heat that _he_ built up inside her, her eyes closed as she savours the moment from her headrest on his chest. _He_ did that to her. _He_ put that expression on her face. Oliver thinks that it might be the greatest achievement of his life.

Unable to help himself, he bends down his head to start mouthing along the top of her breasts, along her collarbone and up the tendons of her neck. Her moan encourages him, and he feels himself twitch inside her which must be some sort of miracle because he thought he had nothing left in him but apparently she has the ability to bring him back with just the smallest of noises. Just by being her.

He makes his way past her throat, gleefully and guiltily noticing the bright marks he has left with his mouth and teeth but not letting that stop him as he reaches her mouth and tastes her there. She lazily returns his kiss, still slightly dazed but aware enough to be reacting to him. This is everything that he has wanted for nine months. Her, in his arms and relaxed and happy. It has taken him so long to get to this point, so many heated arguments and a lot of heavy flirting between the two of them but it makes this reward feel so much better. He has worked so hard to make her see the better side of him, he has made so many mistakes and has tried his hardest to fix them but he would do it all over again if it meant getting back to this very moment.

He tightens his hold on her, suddenly emotional and pulls back from her lips just enough to softly murmur to her, “Felicity.” His favourite word.

It is a mistake. The sound of his voice sets something off in her and she stiffens in his arms, the tension in her body making their fit awkward and reminding Oliver that they are definitely sat on the floor and not lounging in a bed together.

She pulls her body back from his, exposing his sweat slicked chest to the cold air abruptly. He hisses at both the chill on his skin and at the way that her movement shifts him inside her. A small squeak escapes her lips as she takes him in, her eyes widening and then she is standing up, making him leave her body in a way that makes him groan in displeasure and she is stumbling back until she hits the desk where they started this whole thing.

“Felicity?” he asks, furrowing his brow as he too stands up, recovered enough to keep himself upright.

“Oh God.” She moans, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” She does not seem to realise that she is speaking out loud, “I can’t believe I just did that. What did I just do? This is bad. This is very, _very_ bad.”

Oliver gets within reaching distance of her, aware that the two of them are still fully naked and he wraps his hands around her shoulders, turning her to face him, “Hey. You’re talking out loud again.” he says softly, “What’s wrong? Did you… did you _not_ like that?” he has never felt insecure after sex before. Then again, he has never had one of his bed mates babble about having done something bad post-sex before either.

“What?” Felicity asks, finally focusing on him. Her cheeks turn an adorable shade of red as she takes in his appearance from the scratch marks on his chest to his bird’s nest hairstyle to the way that he is already half-hard again.

“I said,” he explains, one hand reaching up to tuck a flyaway strand of her hair behind her ear, where the rest of the locks that he freed from her ponytail and proceeded to _thoroughly_ muss up hang. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” she asks, incredulous, “ _What’s wrong_? _What’s wrong_ is that I just _slept_ with you. _What’s wrong_ is that we’re still going to be stuck together for _weeks_ with no escape after this. _What’s wrong_ is that you’re and utter _asshole_ and yet I still-” she cuts herself off, “Everything about this is wrong, Oliver. We just fucked up big time.”

All of the happy feelings inside his body produced by their activities over the last hour vanish at her words. She _regrets_ sleeping with him. She does not want to be here with him. She is not happy to have weeks of uninterrupted time with him. _She still hates him_. His heart breaks at the realisation that she is having the exact opposite thoughts that he is. He thought they had made progress, he thought that they were finally on the same page but this whole time she has been hating his guts and wants nothing more than to be free of him.

He thinks that this is the first time he has ever felt heartbreak like this.

The woman he loves hates him, and nothing that he has done in nine months has changed a thing. It may have even made matters worse.

*************************

**Five Months Before**

“You can’t just change the supplier without consulting me! This is a collaboration, Mister Queen-”

“Oliver.” He reminds her.

She ignores him, “It’s not Smoak Tech consulting for QC, it’s not a buyout, it’s not even QC’s project. It belongs to both of us, and therefore it is a complete violation for you to just go changing things without first-”

“But-”

“-asking me-”

“But I-”

“-for permission.”

“-just thought-”

“Why did you even change it? We had a good deal.” She huffs, not hearing him. _He was just trying to save her time, he knows how busy she is and didn’t see the point in adding to her burdens with something so clean cut_.

“They were trying to rip us off. My team found a better option, so we went with it.”

Her hands flip into the air in frustration. Adorable. “You can’t just go with it Oliver! Honestly.” He loves it when she gets angry with him. She slips up and calls him Oliver instead of Mister Queen. Sometimes he finds himself trying to provoke her just to get her to drop some of that consummate professionalism she has around him. Sometimes he does it some more when he sees her laughing with Diggle like they are best friends and she just scowls at him.

He is pretty sure that she does not hate him anymore. He definitely does not hate her. He thinks that she is remarkable. Over their months of working together, he has managed to learn more about her and with every new thing he just falls harder. None of it has come from her intentionally, she is far too stubborn for that and seems to enjoy their antagonistic flirting as much as he does, but he sees it every day. In the positive atmosphere at the Smoak Tech building, the smiles on her employees’ faces, the way that every single person she talks to comes away happy and gushes about how wonderful she is (except Mister Dennis and some of the other old guys on the Smoak Tech and QC boards). He feels it in the way that his heart always swells when she is around, in the way that her babbles never fail to make his day better, especially when she ends up revealing little details of her life to him during those babbles.

She only has her mother, who is very different to her and whilst they often do not understand one another, Felicity still loves and appreciates her, even if she can be difficult to deal with.

She is an only child.

She went to MIT at sixteen.

Her best friend’s name is Alena, and is her CTO.

She is remarkable. Which is not something that she babbled to him, but she might as well of. Everything that he knows about her confirms it.

He realises that she has been yelling at him for several minutes and has now moved on to making a strategy for how to fit the new supplier and their timeline into their project and that he has not been paying attention to a word. She is just very distracting to look at. Especially when she is passionate about something.

Shaking himself off and purposefully ignoring John’s knowing smirk, he refocuses, determined to show her that he too can be professional and get things done.

*************************

Oliver redresses quickly, feeling emotionally vulnerable as it is and wanting the protection of his clothes before he has a full breakdown about the fact that Felicity has clearly had a completely different view on their every interaction than he has. He hides himself away in the corner of his living room to reanalyse the entire last nine months of his life. Going over every conversation he has ever had with her, he tries to see it from her perspective, without the filter of his feelings for her.

All of those times that he thought they were flirting when he teased – did she just think that he was being a dick? Did she think that he was behaving like every other arsehole businessman she has been forced to deal with? When he was trying to provoke her to see her face flush, did she assume that he was actually being cruel?

_What has he done_?

He tries to keep the despair from his face. There has to still be hope, right? She cannot completely hate him. What did she think he was doing when he brought her homemade lunches? Or when he came to her office just to check up on her? What did she think he was doing that time that she fell asleep during a late night working and he put his jacket around her shoulders and took her home?

She _has_ to know how he feels about her, right? He has been so obvious about it.

But apparently, judging by the tentative way that she edges into the room to get some food from the kitchen, she has no idea. And the thought that she believes he has been trying to upset her for nine months is maybe the worst part of this whole thing.

*************************

**One Month Before**

The pandemic snuck up on them. Well, more on Oliver than Felicity, who has actually been paying close attention to it, but the government ordering a countrywide lockdown was unexpected. Whilst some of the operations of both of their companies are key and will therefore allow some of their workers to keep going in, most will now have to work from home. And the collaboration project will be extremely difficult to continue, as it is not key work and a lot of it has to be done actually in the labs.

Oliver and Felicity work tirelessly in the days leading up to it to prepare their companies and their collaboration to be able to get through the situation as unscathed as possible. Both of them try to funnel their efforts into as much relief work as possible so that they can continue to employ as many people as possible whilst still helping out the relief efforts and providing as much to the healthcare system and workers as possible.

But what they cannot agree on is the collaboration. Felicity does not trust him to get it done right, which he can understand because she is the one with the expertise but he knows that his board will never go for her doing it alone. They argue over it for hours, with Oliver trying to suggest that they work together long distance and Felicity listing all of the reasons that his plan will not work because so much has to be done physically and in person.

Eventually, she lets out a scream. “I can’t believe I’m suggesting this,” she grumbles, “And don’t let it get to your head, the only reason I am suggesting it is because I can see no other way. This is the _last_ thing that I want.” She takes in a deep breath, “If the two of us isolate together then we might possibly be able to get the work done and keep this thing mostly together and give the team a chance of getting straight back to it as soon as possible.”

Oliver’s brain actually short circuits. Them isolating together would mean he and Felicity… _alone_ … _together_ … for what could possibly be months without any outside influences. He is pretty sure that he has dreamt of that exact scenario before.

“Y- yeah. Yes. I would… that could… yes.” He stammers, “That would work. We could stay at my place? I have a spare bedroom.” He adds, and then feels stupid. She is the CEO of an extremely successful company for its age. She almost definitely also has a spare bedroom or three.

“Um… okay.” Is she blushing? “Yeah, I’ll go grab some stuff from my place and… yeah.”

“I’ll get together everything here while you do.” He offers, and that gives her the permission she needed to run out of there. Definitely blushing.

*************************

She is terrible at cooking and Oliver knows it. They have leftovers from the meal that he made them last night but he has seen her burn water and watching her fumble with the pans and the hob, whilst adorable and amusing even in his despair, is extremely alarming. He knows that he is going to have to step in if he does not want his kitchen to be ablaze, but it is just so hard. To think that the entire time he was making passionate love to her – living out his greatest fantasies on the desk and then the wall of his home office – she thought that they were just hate fucking. Scratching an itch. It is almost too much to bear.

But when she nearly sets fire to her hair, he knows he has left it long enough. He hauls himself out of his pity seat on the sofa and ambles into the kitchen cautiously.

“Here.” He says, reaching around her from behind to extract the utensils from her hands, “I’ve got it.” She jumps a little at the feel of his hands around hers and then darts out from between his arms.

“I would say it’s okay, I can do it, but I think by now you know that’s not true.” She says, nervous.

“It’s okay.” He says, “I like cooking for you.” He might as well be honest about it, she must have seen the adoration in his eyes when he was moving _inside her_ , there is no hiding it now.

“You do?” she seems surprised.

He sighs, “Of course I do, Felicity. Why else would I make you a lunch every workday for three months?”

“I… I thought you were just trying to rub it in my face that I can’t cook and have a crappy diet.”

Oliver’s head snaps to her, taking his eyes off the food, “What?” he asks, incredulous, “Why would _anyone_ do that? That’s insane.” She nods as if to say ‘exactly’, “And besides, I think it’s adorable that you can’t cook. It proves that you’re actually human and not some perfect robot.” He teases.

“I’m not perfect.” She frowns.

Oliver does not mean to say it out loud, but he does because apparently Felicity’s babble is catching, “You are to me.”

*************************

**One Hour Before**

“That won’t work, Oliver!” she yells, “We need something that’s as cheap as that but also acid resistant or this will never work at an affordable level! Why can’t you just get that through your head?” they have been arguing over the project for hours, with the latest point of contention being the materials they are going to use for production, and Felicity has reached her breaking point and is just screaming at Oliver every time he tries to make a suggestion.

He is just as frustrated, “Well you pick then, because I sure as hell can’t do anything right!”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it!” she groans, rubbing her hands over her face, “I just… if we can’t figure this out then what is even the point?”

Living with Felicity has been interesting. It means that they can work together far more, but it also means that their arguments have grown more and more frequent as the tension between them has increased. Because living with Felicity also means seeing sides of her that he never has before. Like no-makeup Felicity, who is beyond gorgeous. Like relaxing TV-time Felicity, who Oliver wants nothing more than to snuggle with. Like just-woke-up Felicity, who can barely function before coffee and always has the sexiest hair and the cutest pyjamas and who makes Oliver have to fight not to just lean in and kiss her. Because kissing her and her not wanting him to would be a disaster for both of them since they are stuck together for the foreseeable future.

But every night, watching her retreat into her bedroom after he makes them dinner and they eat together is becoming harder. He just wants her to come to his bedroom, he wants to be able to hold her and love her and do terrible, _terrible_ things to her behind closed doors. Or just anywhere, really. The closed doors are not a major requirement for him.

And all of the pining and sexual frustration is translating into professional frustration, which is the only emotional outlet that either of them have anymore. They are arguing over the smallest things. They are arguing over things that they actually _agree_ on but that are frustrating nonetheless and something has to give soon.

Turns out, it is Oliver that gives in first. Not that he is surprised, he has been on the edge of caving to Felicity for months, his love for her is becoming hard to contain. And so when they start their sixth argument of the night, and she gets up close to him with fiery eyes and bright red lips from where her teeth have been biting into them, and she prods him in the chest, he does not think before wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her in to fasten his lips to hers, effectively shutting her up.

They do not say a word to one another, their lips locked together as they tear the clothes from one another’s bodies. Oliver lifts Felicity onto the desk, rucking up her skirt to give him access to her underwear and then he is taking them off and kneeling before her and his dreams are coming true. On the desk. Then again, after he strips her fully and pushes her up against the wall, insatiable for the woman of his dreams.

*************************

“I am what to you?” she demands.

“You don’t need me to say it again.” he whines.

She gets into his personal space, angry again, “I do. I don’t understand so I do. I am what to you, Oliver?”

“Perfect.” He whispers, looking deep into her eyes, face mere inches from hers, “You’re perfect to me.”

“I don’t understand.” She shakes her head in denial, stepping back and away from him.

“What don’t you understand, Felicity?”

“How can you possibly say that?” she cries, looking distressed, “You hate me! You’ve been nothing but awful to me since the day we met!”

“I- I don’t hate you, Felicity! How can you possibly think that? Do you… I haven’t ever _meant_ to be awful to you. When we met, I wasn’t expecting you and you took me by surprise and I misspoke. I didn’t mean to insult you and then after that I thought we were just flirting! I thought we were flirting and I thought you knew and I provoked you because I thought that you knew it was just because I like seeing you riled up! I… I brought you food and took care of you and I thought it was so obvious how I feel about you but this entire time I’ve been so wrong and you’ve hated me even as I’ve loved you!” he claps a hand over his mouth. He definitely did not mean to admit that.

“You love me?” she squeaks, “You… you’ve liked me this entire time?”

Oliver nods his head, “Yes.”

“Oh.” And then she starts to _laugh_ , and it is like a dagger to Oliver’s chest, “We’re idiots.” She gasps between guffaws, “This whole time I’ve been hating you and myself for falling for an asshole who could never love me back and this whole time you _have_!” eyes shining, she walks back into him.

“You… are you saying?”

“I love you, Oliver Queen.” His heart just stops. She loves him. _She loves him_!

He barely even notices that he is crying, “I love you, Felicity. I love you so damned much.”

She surges up to him, arms wrapping around his neck and kisses him again. This time it is tender, loving, her hands caressing hairs on the nappe of his neck rather than tearing at them. Both of them are pouring every emotion they have kept to themselves into the kiss. Oliver wastes no time in hoisting her up into his arms again and carrying her to his bedroom. The bedroom that they proceed to make _theirs_ all night.

And that they continue to make _theirs_ for the next two months, the two of them completely alone together, basking in their newfound love.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this is a good place to leave this one but I do have ideas for doing a chapter on Felicity's POV and what happened next and maybe one on John's POV and a year or so down the line? Not sure. I might do it.
> 
> I'm on twitter [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera).


End file.
